Intel 510 Series 120GB Elm Crest SSD Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2011-05-08
·
1,441 words · ~7 min read
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today I'm going to be unboxing a very exciting product this is the second to
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Market SATA 36 gbit per second SSD so
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this is the Intel 510 Series this is a 120 GB super fast according to Intel and
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I believe them super fast hard drive replacement drive it is high performance
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it is for desktop and mobile system so this is a 2 and 1/2 in drive and it
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includes a desktop installation kit that is how they achieve that so here we find
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Intel's product information so you can see here this is a 510 Series 120 gig
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capacity Drive okay there's not a whole lot else on here other than the pack
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date which is January 28th 2011 so Intel
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being ready for launches as they always are has these boxed up fully retail
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ready to go well before launch this box includes well we'll get to that once we
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actually open it and let's see what else Intel has to say for themselves do more
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wait less super fast hard drive alternative rugged silence solid SATA 6
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gbit per second and 3 gbit per second
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compatible Now Intel with their usual tradition is providing or in line with
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their usual tradition is providing a three-year warranty on this product and
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oh look at this it's not sealed okay
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this side is sealed let's break the seal just because that's part of what I enjoy
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doing there we go ha let's open this baby up I'm actually
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really excited about this so the first
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sha 3 gbit per second SSD on the market
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was The crucial C300 and here we are we
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finally have an answer from Intel one of the big players in the SSD Market they
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really shook things up when they released the original x25 M so there's
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the SSD itself let's go a little bit further in and see what else we got ooh
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I love stickers I actually I actually really love stickers so uh this is a
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pretty nice sticker I would actually be pretty content to put this on something
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speed demon look a barcode all right
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just in case Intel needs to track their sticker inventory Intel
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SATA solid state drive here's a little thing thank you for
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purchasing in a wide variety of different languages basically thank you
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for purchasing okay next we've got one
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of those little mini CDs that I think are
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adorable open that up what's this okay
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installation guide and warranty oh on disc nice okay next we've
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got more environmentally friendly packaging hey look at that it comes with
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a SATA cable that's high class not a very nice SATA cable mind you that's a
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very thin thin SATA cable you might want
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to get your own SATA cable but my assumption is that this is in spite of
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its thinness and flexibility you know you could argue that thin and flexible is an advantage for a SATA cable uh it's
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got to be rated for SATA 6 gbit per second because it does come with a SATA
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6 gbit per second drive and if I could get it to focus we could see what it's
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called here there it is what is that M phenol
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cool okay we've also got a Molex TOA power adapter included in the packaging
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oh look at that a locking SATA power adapter or connector I haven't actually
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seen one of those before interesting okay we got some screws there's case
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screws they include an extra one just in case and then here are screws for the
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SSD itself to bolt to the 2 and 1/2 in to 3 and 1/2 in adapter and they include
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an extra one of those just in case as well nice little touch from Intel here's
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the adapter so you mount one drive on there you mount this in your 3 and 1/2
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in and then you're good to go nice solid steel
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adapter okay now we get to the goods here so
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we've got a careful observe precautions
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for handling this device and that is a
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wow you can only break that sticker once you can see it leaves behind an ugly
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residue okay and then we
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have Oo we have some do not
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eat and the SSD itself so here is the
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Intel SSD 510 series it uses a silver
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housing unlike you know what I think the first SSD sample I ever got was this one
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right here so that is my Intel x25 M80
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gig and it was black and it had kind of a little uh plastic Ridge thing on it so
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it could be installed in varying thicknesses of notebook mounting
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mechanisms so this is actually the next
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Intel SSD sample I've received so it'll be interesting to see in terms of
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Aesthetics and in terms of performance how far they have come so we've got some
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specs here there's the 6 gbit SATA SSD
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so remember too guys that SATA 6 GB per second is physically identical to SATA 3
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gbit per second as well as SATA 1 150 megabit per second so you don't have to
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worry about any backwards compatibility issues physically now some older
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chipsets like maybe SATA 1 chipsets might have trouble with a SATA 6 Drive
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although there's no reason to believe they would necessarily but just
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something to bear in mind Intel does specifically say though that it is
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compatible with SATA 3 6 GB per second and SATA 2 3 GB per second so it's got
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its usual mounting holes on the sides usual interface at the back ual mounting
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holes on the bottom and uh ooh this is
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interesting okay okay looks like we're going to uh looks like we're going to be
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doing a longer video than I had originally thought here because I'm
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going just dig into my backpack
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here find a screwdriver there are no warranty void
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if removed stickers on this drive so we're going to be opening this guy
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up and finding out what there is what Mysteries it
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holds inside so there's one
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screw sorry guys I apologize because it's a six-minute unboxing of a drive
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already but oh yeah performance why don't I talk
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about performance while we do this so Intel spec this drive for up to
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470 megabytes per second read and up to
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315 megabytes per second right speeds so
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what that means is that this is fully
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justified in using a SATA 3 6 GB per
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second interface now there are some SATA 36 gbit per second hard drives out there
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that really don't even begin to approach
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needing that kind of sorry these are really hard to remove needing that kind
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of bandwidth for the amount of data that they can actually read and write
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sequentially now this drive also uses actually okay I'm not going to spoil
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that surprise but in in terms of its spec it speced for up to
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20,000 uh 4K random reads per second and
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50,000 4K random rights per second okay
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it uses here we go Intel flash this is
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34 nanm Flash and a Marvel controller
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let's go ahead and take this PCB out of
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here so it's double-sided Okay so we've got eight
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chips on the one side eight chips as well as what appears to be a cache so
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we've got a controller a cache and then a 16 chip
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solution um Intel also calls out that
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it's specifically compatible with their six series chipsets although it'll work
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just fine probably with any other SATA 3 6 GB per second controller and it is
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available in two capacities the 120 gig
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that we are looking at here today and at launch it is also available in a 250 gig
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configuration do not take your drive apart the way that I have I don't
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recommend it that is not not what tech tips is all about it's about me doing it
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so you don't have to but other than that thank you for watching and don't forget
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to subscribe to lineus techtips for more unboxings reviews and other computer
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videos and stay tuned on my NC Tech tips
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channel for more information about this drive